A Genie's Point of View
by justawriter33
Summary: Castle in the Air from Howl's point of view. Sequel to my other story. This is the result of me breaking my promise. :D. Book by Dianna Wynne Jones. HIATUS
1. The Djinn arrives

**Author's note:**

**Okay! I know that i promised that I would, you know, put up Castle in the Air from Howl's point of view in, like, October. But, unfortunately, I was not able to stick to that promise. **

**So, I was just sitting at my computer, when my fingers started to type by themselves. **

**This chapter is crappy, so sorry about that. I promise that the next chapters shalt be a whole lot better. **

**LOVE,**

**ME!**

Howl clattered downstairs with a clash. "Is breakfast ready?" he asked.

Sophie nodded. She was looking weird.

Howl looked at her with concern. "Are you okay?"

Michael shrugged. "She's been like this all morning." Calcifer nodded in agreement.

Sophie looked down at her stomach, and then up at Howl tearfully. "I'm pregnant."

_EIGHT AND THREE-QUARTERS OF A MONTH LATER..._

Howl rubbed his head. "How's Morgan?" he asked.

Sophie laughed. "He's alright. Stop asking." She brushed a curl out of her hair. "Anyway, we still set up that spell so that when I think that he might be coming, I can just think about it and you'll know."

Michael and Robbie, the new apprentice, looked up. "The king's worried."

"Why?" Howl asked airily.

"Because a whole lotta princesses have been stolen," Robbie said. He was a tall, light-haired boy with wide gray eyes that Sophie and Michael claimed looked like Martha's. "And apparently, there's a djinn that's looking for a castle to put them in. Something that can go up into the sky."

Howl exchanged glances with Sophie. Calcifer crackled uneasily. "This is not good," he said.

"_Is_ the djinn coming?" Howl asked Calcifer.

Calcifer shifted uneasily as he looked around. His orange eyes flickered. "Yes."

"Curses!" Howl said. "The blasted things are fast!"

"You think?" Sophie spat. She touched all of the walls. "Walls, do NOT let in a djinn. Do NOT." She repeated the same sentence over and over, while Howl felt her spells go up and encase the walls.

Howl rushed to the bench and started to slap spells together hastily. As he did each one, they built up around the castle. Robbie and Michael started to help as well, and Sophie sat down, tired. She was still spry, although she was as full as the moon, but her face was still lovely and youthful, though tired.

Calcifer groaned with the effort of making the castle speed up. "It's coming!"

Howl slapped some more spells together. "Speed up!"

"I can't!" Calcifer yelled. "It's too hard! The djinn's pulling it back."

"I know it is!" Howl said angrily. "But you can't die. You have a thousand more years."

"I wouldn't be certain of that!" Sophie said warily.

Howl turned on her. "Michael-go out to Market Chipping. Stay with Martha. Robbie, go with Michael-but don't get in his way." Despite the emergency, he half-smiled. "Sophie-" he said and turned to her.

Sophie angrily stood up. "No! I am not going away! I'll be more help here than anywhere else!"

"It's getting closer!" Calcifer warned.

"No! You have to go with Megan!" Howl said. Couldn't Sophie understand? He couldn't bear to lose her.

"You know that I don't get along with Megan!" said Sophie. Michael and Robbie tiptoed out of the door.

"I know you don't, but this is important."

Howl could clearly see that Sophie was slowly becoming more stubborn. He groaned. Usually, he would agree when she started to become her stubbornest, but right now, he didn't want to deal with her. "Sophie Hatter Pendragon, you have to!"

"Ugh! When did you start to pull the 'name' thing?" Sophie yelled.

Calcifer gave a hoarse whisper. "It's here."

Sophie and Howl started.

Howl gave a groan as he felt all of the spells shatter as the djinn broke them. He gave another groan as he felt the djinn start to pound on the walls magically, but Sophie's spells were holding for a second. "Calcifer, leave!" he yelled. "Take Sophie with you!"

"No! I won't leave you here!" Sophie yelled at him.

The spells on the walls broke. Howl shouted a cat spell for Sophie and Calcifer sent the small black cat away to somewhere else where she might be safe. Maybe someday, Sophie would forgive him, Howl thought.

The Djinn appeared.

**Yeah, I decided to cut this chapter in two. Deal with it. :D**


	2. Howl is tossed around a lot

**HI!**

**So I was thinking about what I was going to do about the story, when it jumped at me. No, literally. Something jumped at me in the garden and I screamed. My sister laughed at me. **

**Ah. Sisters. They make me remember why I wanted to be an only child. :D**

**So this is chapter two, hola, and I am very excited. **

**Please read and review!**

**Some of the dialogue is DWJ's, but what do you expect?**

**Love,**

**ME ME ME ME ME ME ME**

There was only one word for what Howl was feeling. Terrified.

And angry. Partially because he was still mad at Sophie for not getting out while she could, and he was angry at the djinn for just bursting into the castle. He was terrified because, as Sophie would say, he was a coward.

The djinn eyed him with one large eye. He had large, bat-like ears and muscles that rippled all over his torso. His eyes were black where they were supposed to be white, and the irises were red and smoldering like coals on the fire. His wings flapped behind him. Calcifer shrank to a cinder.

Howl was terrified again.

"_YOU_ are the famously powerful wizard?" the djinn asked. His wings flapped behind him and the tips of his fangs were peeping out from his mouth. They were surprisingly white, Howl thought in a detached way.

Since Howl was still mad and fired up from his argument with Sophie, he replied cockily, "Yes. And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it?"

An ugly smile spread across the djinn's hideous face, splitting it in two, his maw red against the blackness of his skin. He spread out his arms and Howl felt magic being cast, magic that was far beyond anything he could do, even if he was the most powerful wizard in the world. Pain rippled its way through Howl and he heard Calcifer scream, as if he was getting the same treatment. A year ago, Howl's heart had been brutally squeezed by Miss Lily Angorian, the former fire demon of the deceased Witch of the Waste. That, in itself, was painful. But compared to what was happening to him right now, he would have gladly taken the heart-squeezing. It felt like the djinn had stuck him in the oven and he was slowly being broiled.

He passed out gladly.

When he woke up, he was in a glass thing. He went to the side of it and felt it. Warm. He looked down at his arm. It was the same.

"Where the hell am I?" Howl asked himself. He looked down at the ground and saw a patch of light coming in from something. He looked up and saw an opening high up from where he was. "This is not going to work unless I fly." But curiously, all of his magic powers had been reduced. When he tried to fly, nothing happened.

Slowly, Howl sank into himself, searching for what happened. As he shrank back into his mind, his body slowly dissipated to blue mist and he found that he could go wherever he wanted. But the minute that he was out of the glass thing, he tried to let go of the blue-mist thingy, but nothing happened. He saw that he was actually in a cloudy glass bottle, and he was floating in a lake. There was a stopper in the bottle with a small hole in the top, so he carefully poured himself into the bottle. He now found that he could turn into himself again.

_Now_ he knew what had happened.

"What are the odds?" Howl asked himself grimly. "I just had to be turned into a genie."

He wiped away some of the cloudiness and found that he could see a little through the glass-enough to see that he was floating near land. He started to turn to mist, and then made a vow, because that's what genies did. "Whoever opened this bottle, I shall turn to a frog," he said. Since he was technically not a wizard anymore, he was allowed to do that.

Something picked up the bottle.

"Is it food?" that thing asked.

"No, food isn't generally in bottles."

"How would you know? You pee in bottles and call it wine."

"Wine is red!"

Howl winced. The conversation was disgusting.

There was a shout, a holler, and Howl's bottle was knocked into the lake again. There was a splashing and many curses as a man floundered into them. He was actually quite nice looking, in a other-worldly kind of way. Almost as handsome as Howl himself, Howl thought, flattering himself. The young man had thick, wavy hair and dark eyes with a dark tan. His face was open and honest, a bit like Michael's. Howl rubbed harder at the glass and kicked it, trying to get out.

The young man seemed to be saying something, despite the fact that a pistol was at his temple.

A villainous-looking man picked up Howl's bottle. "It's quite light," the man said once he reached the obvious leader of the group. Howl could hear faintly through the cork. He shook the bottle and Howl was thrown about. His head hit the wall and he concentrated on turning into mist. He succeeded. "And it neither rattles, nor sloshes."

Howl carefully stuck a bit of blue mist through the cork and listened.

"It's a genie bottle," the young man said. Howl's eyes jolted up and he nearly became solid again. How did that young man know? "Know, denizens of the desert, that it could be very dangerous. Do but take these chains from me and I will control the genie within and make sure that he obeys your every wish." Howl desperately wanted to change the young man into a frog. "Otherwise, I think no man should touch it."

To Howl's annoyance, the leader just laughed. "It looks more like something good to drink," he said, tossing it to another man. Howl had just chosen that time to turn solid, and suffered a bad bruise on his elbow. He cursed the leader soundly, but was drowned out by someone hacking at the lead seal, while someone else held the bottle. Howl was about to let everything loose.

The cork came out with a pop. Howl turned to a thin, mauvish vapor and trickled out. The young man groaned. Howl thickened and became a thick cloud. He made a craggy face that reminded him of Ben Suliman's, and then became a true genie. "I made a vow!" he howled, wind whipping around him. The handsome young man groaned again. "The one who lets me out _suffers!_ THERE!" With a wave of his arms, and with a surge of power that was greater than anything he could have done when he was a wizard, he turned the two men into frogs. They hopped into the lake.

Howl folded his arms and found that he could read people's minds and their memories. For an instance, the young man was named Abdullah and the snooty leader was named Kabul Aqba. He glowered at them. Kabul was not scared, but Abdullah seemed to be terrified witless. A thought flashed in Abdullah's mind, the picture of a lovely young woman.

Howl thought of Sophie when he had first seen her. She had also been a lovely young lady that seemed to be brainless and silly, but turned out to be stubborn, sarcastic...and Howl was infatuated with her. A picture flashed in Howl's mind of her the last time he had seen her, her belly full and her red-gold hair flying around her head, a look of terror on her face. She was the most beautiful person in the world for him. He glowered even more at Abdullah and Kabul Aqba.

"I am the slave of the bottle," Howl said menacingly. "Much as I hate and detest the whole arrangement, I have to tell you that he who owns me is granted one wish a day, and I am forced to grant it." That was not strictly true. He could grant more than one wish a day, but he was forced to grant at least one. "What is your wish?"

"I wish-" the young man started, but then Kabul Aqba rammed his hand across Abdullah's mouth, which Howl found agreeable.

"I am the one wishing," Kabul Aqba said sternly, his ugly face narrowed at Howl. "Get that quite clear, genie?"

Howl was beginning to like being a genie. He could see what people were thinking, and could tell what were their deepest, darkest secrets. But the only thing was that he missed being Howl Pendragon, Howl Jenkins, or Horrible Howl, as Sophie called him sometimes when she was extremely mad at him for something that he had no recollection doing. And he now knew how Calcifer felt when he still had Howl's heart: exploited. "I hear," Howl said. "What wish?"

"One moment," Kabul Aqba said and started to talk to Abdullah in such a low voice that Howl felt like he wanted to swoop in closer and listen. He discovered that he could become as big as he wanted, but he could only fly a few feet into the air before something tugged him down to the bottle again. Kabul Aqba began to talk in earnest to Abdullah, and to Howl's amusement, put the pistol yet again to Abdullah's head. Abdullah said something back and then Kabul snarled, "A waste of a wish. Think again." Abdullah said something again, sweat running down his face clearly enough that even Howl could see it, though his senses had been curiously sharpened when he was in genie form. Finally, Abdullah seemed to say something that pleased Kabul Aqba, because he turned to Howl, who had an annoyed look on his face. "That's better!" Kabul Aqba exclaimed and slapped Abdullah on the back.

Howl raised his eyebrows. "Have you decided?" asked Howl, letting some of his annoyance leak out into his voice.

"I wish for a most lavish feast," Kabul Aqba said most grandly, outstretching his hand to the desert.

Howl decided that he would make all of the wishes have dire consequences. "Done," he said, and took the feast from a royal person. He bowed, the wind making some of the mist swirl around him. "And much good may it do you," he added, just for the fun of the kick of it. He poured himself back into the bottle, where he stared at the cloudy wall.

Then he remembered the spell.

_SOPHIE!_ He yelled in his mind.

_H-howl?_ Sophie asked tentatively.

_Sophie? Thank god. Are you safe? Where are you?_ Howl asked, relieved. He pushed his flaxen curls out of his face.

_I-I'm not sure where I am. But all I know is that I'm safe. Are you safe?_ He remembered that Sophie was a cat and smiled inwardly. She was probably having fun, but he was having a grandly miserable time.

_I'm a-_ Howl felt the word 'genie' ripped out of his head.

_You're an idiot?_ Sophie asked and laughed in her mind.

_Never mind._

The magic of a djinn ripped their connection apart. Howl reached for where it was supposed to be, but nothing happened.

The spell was demolished.

**Yeah. In case you didn't remember, in the first chapter, there was a part where he was thinking about the spell that he cast with Sophie in case she needed him. **

**Yeah. **

**Okay...**


	3. Abdullah exploits him

**Sorry, no update in a long time. I was tired and cranky...and I couldn't find the book. So I started a new story, about Percy Jackson and the Olympians, blah blah blah. PLease check it out!**

**So...yeah. I was also on vacation. Did I mention that I want to live in Hearst Castle? Awesomest place ever.**

**Me.**

Howl quickly found out that he was able to conjure up chairs, tables, and all sorts of stuff. So he conjured up a television, got mad at it, kicked the screen-which broke, so he had to conjure it away. Then he conjured a bed and slept.

He was rudely awoken by the cork jerked out of the bottle.

Groaning, Howl became mist again and whisked out of the bottle. Honestly! Howl thought. Genies need sleep too! "I SAID ONE WISH A DAY!" Howl howled. **(**Author here***haha, see what I did there?) **For some reason, Kabul Aqba was gone and instead Abdullah was there.

"Yes, well, this is a new day, O mauve magnificence, and I am your new owner," Abdullah said. "And this wish is simple. I wish these chains of mine gone."

"Hardly worth wasting a wish on," Howl said contemptuously and cast the spell. Then he went back into the bottle, where he slept again on his bed.

His dreams were full of djinn. The djinn was wrecking the moving castle, with Calcifer and Sophie in it. Howl was yelling at him to stop, stop it!, but the djinn was not listening. Finally, he stopped and Howl dragged out Sophie's limp and lifeless body, but her stomach was curiously flat...

Howl sat straight up.

What happened to Morgan?

Sophie and Howl had decided to name the baby Morgan, because Martha insisted that the name start with an M, and Sophie wanted to stick with that wish.

"A boy of mine needs a powerful, a surreal name that enchants all the ladies around him," Howl had said.

"Oh, like yours?" said Sophie sarcastically. "Howl Pendragon? Anyway, if he wants to change his name to something powerful and surreal when he grows up, we'll shorten his name to 'Morg'."

"What kind of name is 'Morg'?" Howl had asked indignantly.

"Exactly."

So Sophie had won that argument. And the next one. But he had one the third one, so Sophie promptly cut up another one of his suits, which he had to repair.

Howl flicked to another memory. Sophie had been asking him to put up a shelf in their room. Howl had said that he would do it later, and kept on saying that three months later. So Sophie had gotten Michael to put up the shelf and then led him to it. She asked him what was different about it.

Howl just _knew_ that there was something different about the wall. He just didn't know what. So he took a wild guess.

"You whitewashed again?"

Sophie had stormed off.

Later that day, Sophie was taking out her frustration on the castle, cleaning it again. Howl had watched her, thoroughly bemused. Michael had came up and whispered what Sophie was so angry about.

That night, Howl had apologized.

Howl could see through the smoky glass that Abdullah was sleeping, and it was night. Since Howl had already slept ten to twelve hours, he paced the rest of the night.

In the morning, Abdullah wrenched the cork out of the bottle. Howl transferred to smoke and rose out of the bottle, grumpy and sad. So he wasn't very happy when he saw Abdullah smiling. "What are you smiling about?"

The young man didn't even pay a whit of attention to Howl and waved him away. "My wish, O amethyst among genies, of colour more beautiful than pansies..." he said. "May violets scent your breath. I wish you to transport me to the side of my bride-to-be, Flower-in-the-Night."

So that was the young lady, Howl thought. She was extremely beautiful, Howl could tell, from the love struck look on Abdullah's face, but he couldn't find her anywhere. "Oh do you?" he asked. "Where is that young woman? I can't seem to locate her."

"She was carried off by a djinn from her night garden in the Sultan's palace in Zanzib," explained Abdullah. If Howl wasn't composed of smoke, he would've fainted. A djinn?

"That accounts for it," he said, working to sound irritated. It wasn't very hard. "I can't grant your wish. She's nowhere on earth." He was about to pour himself into the bottle, but there was a desperate look on Abdullah's face that made him stop.

"Then she must be in the realm of the djinns," Abdullah said. "Surely you, O purple prince among genies, must know that realm like the back of your hand."

"That shows how little you know," Howl said irritably. Since he had been turned into a genie, he had found out a lot about him that just came from his head. "A genie confined to a bottle is debarred from any of the spirit realms. If that's where your girl is, I can't take you there. I advise you to put the cork back into my bottle and be on your way. There's quite a large troop of camels coming up from the south."

Abdullah sprang up with a look of faint horror on his face. Howl watched in amusement. "See?" Howl said. "They might miss finding you, but I doubt it." Of course, if they found him, then Howl was going to be in hell as well, but it was worth punishing the young fool that dared to exploit him.

"You must grant me another wish, quickly," Abdullah said. Howl's humor evaporated.

"_Oh _no," Howl said. "One wish per day. You've already made one."

"Certainly, I did," Abdullah agreed. "O splendor of lilac vapors; but that was a wish that you were unable to grant. And the terms, as I clearly heard when you first stated them, were that you are forced to _grant_ your owner one wish a day. This, you have not yet done."

Howl found this very disagreeable. "Heaven preserve me!" he said disgustedly. "The young man is a coffee shop lawyer!"

"Naturally I am!" Abdullah said. Finally, he was starting to get mad. Personally, Howl thought that all sweetness and kindness was sickening. "I am a citizen of Zanzib, where every child is taught to guard it's own rights. For it is certain that no one else will guard them. And I claim that you have not granted me a wish today."

"A quibble," Howl said, folding his arms. "One wish has been made."

"But not granted," Abdullah countered.

"it is not my fault if you choose to ask for things which are impossible." Howl said, thinking about the time before he had gotten his heart back. "There are a million beautiful girls that I can take you to, instead. You can have a mermaid-" Howl thought of the mermaids of his curse- "if you fancy green hair. Or can't you swim?"

"Think, o Puce pearl of magic, and soften your heart. Those soldiers approaching us will certainly seize your bottle from me when they reach us. If they take you back to the Sultan, he will force you to do mighty deeds daily, bringing him armies and weapons and conquering his enemies for him, most exhaustingly. If they keep you for themselves-and they might, for all soldiers are quite honest-you will be passed from hand to hand and be made to grant many wishes each day, one fore each of the squad. In either case, you will be working far harder than you will work for me, who only wants one small thing." Lord, does he have to drag this out? Howl thought. Couldn't he just say that if Howl was captured by either the Sultan or that pack, then he would be working far harder than he would for Abdullah? That would certainly be easier to understand.

"What eloquence!" Howl said. "Though you have a point, I admit. But have you thought, on the other hand, what opportunities that the Sultan or his soldiers will give me to work...havoc?"

"Havoc?" Abdullah asked, and Howl was pleased to see that he was confused.

"I never said my wishes were supposed to do anyone any good," Howl said. "In fact, I swore that they would always do as much harm as possible. Those bandits, for instance, are now all on their way to prison for stealing the Sultan's feast. The soldiers found them late last night when they were drunk," said Howl smugly. In fact, he had only came up with that vow before the first wish.

"You care causing worse havoc with me for not granting me a wish!" said Abdullah. "And unlike the bandits, I do not deserve it."

Howl felt indignant. Of course he deserved it. He was the one that was taking advantage of Howl's unfortunate predicament of being shoved into a bottle and turned into a genie that was always bent to everyone's will. "Regard yourself as unlucky," he said stiffly. "This will make two of us. I don't deserve to be shut in this bottle either."

"Give me tomorrow's wish then," Abdullah said urgently.

"That might be the solution," Howl said approvingly. Then, he could rest for two days. "What wish, then."

"Transport me to the nearest person who can help me find Flower-in-the-night," Abdullah said. "Quickly."

Interestingly enough, Howl had a hard time finding that person either. "This is odd. My powers of divination are usually excellent," said Howl thoughtfully, "but I can't make heads of tails of this."

Abdullah ran with Howl in his hands. Apparently, the camel people were close. "Just take me to that person!" he screamed. That was by far the most emotion that he had seen from Abdullah so far.

"I suppose I'd better," Howl said reluctantly, casting the spell. "Maybe you can make heads or tails from it." He poured himself into the bottle just before the spell took effect.

And they transported there.

Abdullah looked around. "Where is the person that can help me find Flower-in-the-night?"

Howl wrenched himself up again. "Asleep on a bench in front of the Red Lion," he said. "He appeals to me. He shines with dishonesty."

**Please Read and Review!**

**Oh, and I have a question on my profile that I need someone to answer! I can't figure it out! It's on my current events. Please PM me with the answer and you shall be loved forever.**


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